Tibetan and Himalayan Library - THL

What is a Monk?

A monk of SeraSe ra-India

If the ancient, classical sources are right, in his mid-twenties the Buddha renounced
the life of pleasure and affluence. He cut off his hair, became an ascetic, and
entered the forest, where he lived with other men – śramaṇas – who were engaged in the practice of austerities and meditation. After
six year of practicing a severe form of asceticism that included rigorous fasting,
the Buddha realized that this type of discipline was as much of an extreme as the
life he had renounced. He took nourishment, and regaining his bodily strength, he
meditated until he attained enlightenment. Shortly after his enlightenment, the texts
tell us, the Buddha established an order of monks, and eventually an order of nuns.
Applying the lessons he had learned in the earlier periods of his life, he created
over his lifetime a discipline – the Vinaya – that would come to govern the life of
the Buddhist clergy: a discipline that the Buddha considered a middle way between the
extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification.

Motivated by a sense of disgust with the conditioned world and its sufferings, and by
the realization that no lasting happiness is to be found in worldly pleasures,
Buddhist monks and nuns are those individuals who emulate the Buddha by abandoning
the life of sensual enjoyment. In place of a life dedicated to the pursuit of
pleasure, they give themselves over to a life of discipline and restraint, realizing
that this is conducive (some Buddhist schools would say necessary) to achieving a more lasting happiness, the permanent peace of
nirvana. Disgust with the world, or renunciation (ngenjungnges
’byung) – an attitude that TsongkhapaTsong kha pa likens to the attitude of prisoners
who can think of nothing else but release from their incarceration – is, strictly
speaking, a necessary condition for entering the monastic life. In practice, however,
few individuals probably entered monasteries with an already developed and mature
sense of renunciation.

A second century C.E. Gandharan statue of the Buddha during the ascetic
phase of his life. From Heinz Bechert and Richard Gombrich, The
World of Buddhism (London: Thames and Hudson, 1984),
42.

In Tibet, most monks were ordained at an early age before they were even instructed
in religious principles. They entered the monastery with an attitude that was
probably more akin to that of children about to attend summer camp. Many of these
children probably had little deeply felt devotion to the religious life, at least
initially. They entered the monastery simply because this was the wish of their
parents. Those few who made such a choice at a more mature age may have entered for
religious reasons, but as often as not they may have entered simply to escape the
responsibilities that came with traditional family life. It is not surprising that
young men should have sought monasticism as a lifestyle, or that parents should have
wanted such a life for their sons. In Tibet, a monk’s life was financially more
secure than that of the typical villager, it afforded one a greater opportunity for
education, and it sometimes opened the door to civil service positions in the Tibetan
government.1 As in most Buddhist countries, monasticism in Tibet
became institutionalized, and the monastic life was for many a profession. This does
not mean that some monks did not go on to develop a profound sense of religious
vocation, and even a deeply felt sense of renunciation, over the period of their
lives. The historical records clearly show that the monasteries produced great
saints, individuals who saw the world and its activities as vanities, but these were
always in the minority, and even in these cases, such an attitude was something that
developed and grew over a lifetime.

Novice monks of SeraSe ra-India.

Formally speaking, a monk or nun is any individual who has taken monastic vows in a
Buddhist ordination ceremony.2 Practically
speaking, in Tibetan culture, a monk is any male3 with
one of three forms of ordination:

Renunciates take the five basic vows of a layman,5 supplemented by a few additional
vows that require them to adopt certain monastic behaviors: for example, shaving
their heads and wearing robes. Novices take ten vows (sometimes
further elaborated in a list of thirty-six).6 Fully ordained monks in the
Tibetan tradition take 253 vows.7 All forms of monastic
ordination in Tibet are presumed to be for life, even if there exist mechanisms that
allow monks and nuns to return their vows – and hence to return to lay life – if they
so choose.8 A young boy can take novice ordination
when he is old enough to successfully “scare away crows” (about age seven). To take full
ordination, one must be at least twenty years of age. The higher levels of ordination
require the lower levels as prerequisites. Hence, one must take novice vows before
taking full ordination, and one must take lay vows before taking novice (although all
of the ordinations can take place within a single day).

Two fully-ordained monks at SeraSe ra-Tibet. Today monks of this age are among
the most senior monks of the monastery.

Any official member of SeraSe ra is required to have one of these three forms of
ordination: renunciate, novice, or full. Typically, young boys take renunciate
ordination when they first enter the monastery (either SeraSe ra or the monastery in their
home region). They may remain at this level of ordination for several years until
their teacher decides that they are ready to take novice vows. Since textualists who
planned to complete their studies and to obtain the geshédge bshes degree had to study the
Vinaya, and since the study of the Vinaya required that the monk have full
ordination, all serious textualists eventually received full ordination. There were
some monks, however, who remained novices their whole lives. Obviously, these were
mostly workers (and not textualists). Novice and full ordination ceremonies would
usually take place en masse from time to time, and the great scholars and highest
lamabla mas of the monastery (or of the GelukDge lugs tradition) usually served as the abbot (khenpomkhan po)9 on these occasions.

[1] Since the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the Tibetan governmental
bureaucracy had two branches that worked jointly. One was manned by non-monk
aristocrats, and the other by monks who were awarded these positions largely on
the basis of merit.

[3] There are also female
monastics in the Tibetan tradition, called nuns (ania
ni). In India there existed different levels of female monastic
ordination, from the ordination of novices to full ordination (gelongmadge slong ma). It has traditionally been thought that the lineage of
full ordination for women was lost in India before it could be passed on to
Tibetans. Recently, however, Kurtis Schaeffer has claimed that there are passages
in some Tibetan historical texts that point to the existence of fully ordained
nuns in Tibet; see http://www.aarweb.org/ (type A161 as
session number). Be that as it may, there is no lineage of full ordination for
women in Tibetan Buddhism today. There are discussions under way, however,
concerning the reintroduction of full monastic ordination for women in Tibetan
Buddhism. See, for example, http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/, and
http://www.thubtenchodron.org.

[4] In a
more general sense, the term rapjungrab byung refers to any monk
or nun who has taken the vows of novice or above; that is, it is simply another
name for the clergy. While it is not clear that rapjungrab byung
as a monastic status different from novice and fully ordained is recognized formally in the Vinaya, it
does seem to be one that was recognized in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. See,
for example, Geshe Sopa, Lectures on Tibetan Religious
Culture, vol. 1 (Dharamsala, India:
Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1983), 4:
“It is permissible for (a young boy)
not to take the vows of a novice or a fully ordained monk right away. Even if
he does not take vows, he can become a monk (raptujungrab tu
byung) by changing his clothes (for monks’ robes) and shaving his
hair” (gnas skabs dge tshul dang dge slong gi sdom pa ma blangs kyang
’grigs/ de dus sdom pa ma blangs kyang gos bsgyur ba dang/ skra bregs pa
sogs byas te rab tu byung).

[5] These
are the upāsaka (Tib. genyendge
snyen) vows: not lying, not killing, not stealing, not engaging in sexual
misconduct, and not taking intoxicants.

[7] This number varies from one Buddhist tradition
to the next, and so the traditions do differ, but only on minor points. For
example, in the Theravāda Buddhist Vinaya, practiced in most of Southeast Asia,
fully ordained monks take 227 vows. Tibetan Buddhists follow the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, where the vows number 253. For the list of vows in Theravāda Buddhism
(preserved in a text called the Patimokkha), see
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/.

[8] This, however, is generally looked down upon. Monks who leave the
monkhood are called dralokgrwa log. The first
part of this compound, dragrwa simply means monk.
The word loklog has two meanings: a verbal one (“to return, to
turn away from”), and a nominal one (“a mistake”). The word dralokgrwa log carries both
connotations of the word loklog. The ex-monk has not only turned away from
monasticism, he has also committed an error. Far from being neutral, then, the
word carries a negative connotation.

[9] In the context of the Vinaya, the abbot is the
chief monk in charge of the ordination ceremony. Only later did the term come to
be used to designate the head of a monastery. In some schools of Tibetan Buddhism,
the term is also used to designate a rank of scholar, but this is an even more
recent usage.